Great job, Mouse.Now focus.
Before the Alpha could register the injury, Iyana was upon him, silver light streaming from her hands and into his chest.Rigil staggered backwards at the onslaught, but his shadows were ready to meet her magic.
Iyana spun out of the way, letting his strike go wide.He plucked the dagger out of his shoulder, and gone was the put-together leader.Before Iyana now was an unhinged star hells-bent on domination.His gold hair was out of place and his lips curled in a snarl.Darkness swirled around his hands before coalescing into a sword.The same weapon that had killed Altair.
In her rage, Iyana imagined cutting Rigil down with a similar blade, and a sword of silver light appeared in her hands.She smiled at the Alpha and went on the offensive.
Suddenly, she was grateful for all the training her friends had insisted upon.While the sword was not her weapon of choice, this one made of pure light weighed nothing and felt more like an extension of herself.Iyana was able to wield it with ease.
Rigil met her every strike with one of his own, still on the defensive.But she could tell this was easy for him, and he was letting her tire herself out.Dancing backward out of his reach, Iyana tried to reassess the situation.She would never beat him in hand-to-hand combat, and the broad grin on the Alpha’s face said that he knew that as well.
Iyana hesitated for too long, and it allowed Rigil to fling a deluge of shadows at her.They hit her directly in the chest and flung her backwards off her feet.She hit the ground and rolled several times before coming to a stop.Her entire body ached from the force of the hit, but she had to get up.Had to keep going.
Iyana!The panicked shout sounded both in the air and in her head.Rolling to her hands and knees, Iyana looked up to see Emmeric turning towards her to help her.
Her eyes widened, and she watched, as if time slowed solely for her to witness this, as Hadar pulled back his short sword and shoved it through Emmeric’s back.The tip of the blade emerged from the Kanaliza’s stomach, red blood dripping onto the grass.
A burning heat pierced her own chest and a maelstrom of Em’s emotions rushed through her—pain, fear, love, confusion, and disappointment.
Emmeric’s gaze met hers, and he reached towards her before his own swords clattered to the ground.Hadar retracted his weapon with a laugh—that searing pain increased—and Emmeric crashed to his knees, then collapsed onto his side.His eyes were still glued to hers, his hand outstretched, like he could touch her from the distance.
Red poured from his stomach and dribbled from the corner of his mouth, but all Iyana could see was the blue of his eyes growing steadily dimmer.
A primal scream ripped from her lungs.Wind whipped around her in a tempest of her own creation.He was too far, and the wound was too grievous for her to heal from there.She had put too much magic into her short battle with Rigil.Iyana needed more.
Reaching for the bond between her and her Kanaliza, she found it fading.Fraying at the edges as Emmeric’s life force dripped out of him.
No.No.
Iyana refused to lose anyone else.
The magic of the Aztia took over, and she tunneled deeper and deeper into herself until she reached the place where all she saw was red, and she could not remember her own name.
Chapter 70
The Aztia
Shedidn’tneedtoknow who she was in order to know that the ugly creature before her was going to die.And that she would take his remains and dance in them once the foul man was gone.
The Aztia flung her hand towards him (the Beta,somewhere in her mind whispered) and with barely a thought, before he could utter another word or plead for his miserable life, he turned to ash.There was a shocked expression on his cracked, blackened face for only a moment before the tempest she was wielding blew away all of his pieces.
Her Kanaliza still lay on the ground, bleeding profusely, but there was the other one to take care of first—Rigil.
For the first time, he gazed upon her with true fear on his cruel face.Good.Let him fear her.Let him tremble before the might of the Aztia.But she knew that he was the strongest of all the stars and had hundreds, if not thousands, of years more experience than her.She still neededmore.The connection to her Kanaliza was barely present—he would be of no help to her.
Then the Aztia remembered the object she carried in her pouch.
An object of great power.
An object ofdestruction.
And, oh, what beautiful destruction she would rain down upon her enemies.
With a flick of her wrist, Khollo’s Downfall floated out of her pouch and into her hand.She could sense Rigil trying to teleport outside of the dragon’s fire, but the Aztia could feel the wards the goddess had put in place that wouldn’t allow him to escape.He was stuck in this ring with her, staring down his death.
The Aztia gazed into the apple-sized black orb that absorbed all light around it.Neither her eyes nor the fire were reflected on its surface.Something deep down told her she should be unnerved or afraid of this, but she was beyond that now.
Smashing the orb to the ground, it shattered into hundreds of little pieces.She flung her hands out and called to the smoky void that emerged, willing it to enter her body.To give her the strength required to finish this.
